Gibbon describes the manufactures of Greece, during the period of Constantinople’s greatest prosperity, as unequalled in elegance and fineness by any similar manufactures of either ancient or modern times. “The gifts,” he states, “which a rich and generous matron of Peloponnesus presented to the Emperor Basil, her adopted son, were doubtless fabricated in the Grecian looms. Danielis bestowed a carpet of fine wool, of a pattern which imitated the spots of a peacock’s tail, of a magnitude to overspread the floor of a new church, erected in the triple names of Christ, of Michael the Archangel, and of the prophet Elijah. She gave six hundred pieces of silk and linen of various use and denomination; the silk was _painted_ with the Tyrian die, and adorned by the labours of the needle; and the linen was so exquisitely fine, that an entire piece might be rolled in the hollow of a cane.”[351] The value of these manufactures was estimated according to the weight and quality of the article, the closeness of the texture, and the beauty of the colours; some, too, of the embroidery is said to have been of the most exquisite description. [Sidenote: System of taxation, and of expenditure.] But though the mariners and some of the manufacturers were relieved from personal taxation, we have the authority of Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Constantinople in the twelfth century, for the statement that the taxes fell very heavily on the ordinary shopkeepers, and on the merchants of foreign countries who frequented the capital.[352] Nor, indeed, could this have been otherwise, where a system of pomp and luxury was promoted by the imperial rulers, scarcely less than that which had mainly caused the ruin of Rome. [Sidenote: Fleets, and mode of warfare.] But, besides this, vast sums of money were required to maintain the army and navy, as the command of the Mediterranean, from the mouth of the Tanais (Don) to the Columns of Hercules, was always claimed and often possessed by the successors of Constantine. To secure an adequate fleet, the capital was filled with naval stores and skilled artificers; the native Greeks, from long practice among their own bays and islands, formed excellent sailors; while the trade of Venice and Amalfi also supplied an excellent nursery of seamen for the imperial squadrons. [Sidenote: A.D. 960.]